What Alice Forgot Read Online Free PDF Page A

his forehead.
    Alice said, “No it’s not. I took a load while you were at squash last night.” They didn’t have a washing machine yet and they were taking all their clothes to the laundry down the road. Nick took the squished-up toast off his face and said, “You didn’t,” and she said, “I did,” and he crawled through tins of paint and put both hands on her face and gave her a long, tender, peanut-buttery kiss.
    But that wasn’t this morning’s breakfast. That was months ago, or weeks ago, or something. The kitchen was finished. She hadn’t been pregnant then either. She was still drinking coffee.
    There were a few breakfasts in a row where they were on a health kick and they had yogurt with fruit. When was that? The health kick didn’t last very long, even though they were pretty gung ho about it in the beginning.
    There were breakfasts when Nick was away for work. She ate her toast in bed when he was away, relishing the romantic pain of missing him, as if he were a sailor or a soldier. It was like enjoying feeling hungry when you knew you’d be having a huge dinner.
    There was that breakfast where they had a fight—faces ugly, eyes blazing, doors slamming—about running out of milk. That wasn’t so nice. (That breakfast definitely wasn’t this morning. She remembered how they forgave each other that night while they were watching Nick’s youngest sister acting a tiny part in a stupendously long postmodern play that neither of them could understand. “By the way, I forgive you,” Nick had leaned over and whispered in her ear, and she’d whispered back, “Excuse me, I forgive you ,” and a woman in front had turned around and hissed, “Shhh! Both of you!” like an angry schoolteacher and they’d got the giggles so badly, they ended up having to leave the theater, clambering past knees and getting into terrible trouble afterward from Nick’s sister.)
    There was a breakfast where she’d grumpily read out possible baby names from a book while he’d grumpily said yes or no. That was nice, because they were definitely both only pretending to be grumpy that morning. “I can’t believe they let us name a person,” Nick had said. “It feels like something only the King of the Land should be able to do.” “Or the Queen of the Kingdom,” Alice said. “Oh, they’d never let a woman name a person,” said Nick. “Obviously.”
    Did that happen this morning? No. That was . . . some time. Not this morning.
    She had absolutely no idea what she’d eaten for breakfast that morning.
    She confessed to George Clooney, “I just said I had peanut butter on toast because that’s my normal breakfast. I can’t actually remember anything about breakfast at all.”
    “That’s fine, Alice,” he answered. “I don’t think I can remember what I had for breakfast myself.”
    “Oh.” Well, so much for ascertaining her mental state! Did George actually know what he was doing?
    “Maybe you’ve got concussion, too,” said Alice. George laughed dutifully. He seemed to be losing interest in her. Maybe he was hoping his next patient would be more interesting. He probably liked using those heart defibrillator thingummies. Alice would if she were a paramedic.
    One Sunday, when Nick had a hangover and she was trying to convince him to go to the beach with her and he was lying on the couch with his eyes closed, ignoring her, she said, “Oh, no, he’s flatlining!” and rubbed two spatulas together before pressing them to his chest, yelling, “Clear!” Nick obligingly gave a realistic spasm right on cue. He still wouldn’t move, until she cried, “He’s not breathing! We’ve got to intubate him— now !” and tried to shove a straw down his throat.
    The ambulance pulled up at a traffic light and Alice shifted slightly. Everything felt wrong about her body. She felt an overwhelming tiredness deep in her bones, as if she could sleep forever, but at the same time a jittery, twitchy energy making her want